I'm not sure that I know the underlying psychology there, but this sounds painfully similar to things that my own DD11 began saying about three years ago when she entered middle school. It truly doesn't seem to be "perfectionism" though it can sure look like it. DD's standards seem to be pretty idiosyncratic and variable, and it is the kind of thing that she says about not just academic work-- but ANYTHING that isn't going well (by her standards). It doesn't seem to respond to anything external, but my gut says that it is rooted in her self-perceptions and in her burgeoning recognition of how her asynchrony impacts her ability to acheive the way she would like.
To me this sounds exactly like perfectionism. How do you see it as different?
Well, I say that it isn't because we
do occasionally see more classic perfectionism in action-- spinning and spinning with an assignment or task and tinkering endlessly because it "isn't quite right yet" etc. All-or-nothing mentality regarding results, etc. (Anything less than a perfect score becomes "I failed" and that kind of thing.)
This business of judging one's self by ones weaknesses-- and not very objectively at that-- is a different kind of thing. It's apparently a self-image issue, but it isn't related to DATA at all. Perfectionism is data-driven... at least what we have seen seems to be; that is, a 98% score means "I should have tried harder... I was almost there" and having to apply herself to a research paper means "I must be really stupid, because this is REALLY hard..."
Does that help?
